KHUJAND, September 24, 2008, Asia-Plus — Three residents of the Navgilem jamoat in Sughd’s Isfara district have bee hospitalized on suspicion of having contracted anthrax.
Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Nasibjon Ikromov, deputy head of the Sughd Center for Sanitary and Epidemiologic Supervision, has confirmed that fact. According to him, they have apparently contracted the disease from infected cow.
“Butcher, who slaughtered the animal, a woman who purchased meat of the infected animal, and a woman, who was cleaning the butcher”s shop, contracted the disease,” Ikromov said.
According to the Sughd veterinary control service, they have put a ban on delivery of meat from the Navgilem jamoat and quarantine has been introduced on realization of meat. “We have started vaccination of all animals against anthrax in Navgilem,” the source at the veterinary control service said.
Anthrax is an acute disease in humans and animals caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which is highly lethal in some forms.
Anthrax most commonly infects wild and domesticated herbivorous mammals which ingest or inhale the spores while eating grass or browse. Ingestion is assumed to be the most common route by which herbivores contract anthrax, but this is as yet unproven. Carnivores living in the same environment may ingest infected animals and become infected themselves. Anthrax can also infect humans when they are exposed to blood and other tissues from infected animals (via inhalation or direct inoculation through broken skin), eat tissue from infected animals, or are exposed to a high density of anthrax spores from an animal”s fur, hide, or wool.
